Trick your ride: tank conversion

If wheels aren’t your thing you should really consider this tank-tread retrofit. It comes with two ramps so that you can drive your car up onto the tread platform. At first we thought this worked by chaining the vehicle’s frame to the tread frame and transferring power through a tread-mill interface. That’s not the case, it seems the transmission needs to be disconnected from the wheels and joined with the tank mechanics. Don’t miss the video antics after the break.

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38 thoughts on “Trick your ride: tank conversion”

Now that’s what I call a strap on! Looks like the stearing is done by breaking one tread, they must hook the front wheels up to a breaking system. So when will these be in stores, traffic jams piss me off!

Actually, what it looks like is that the steering is disconnected entirely (the wheels do not appear to move at all) and they are instead directed to brake one of the treads depending on which way the wheel is turned.

I almost want one. I have 3′ of snow here, and I am sick of all the stupid truckbillys here laughing at my Civic getting stuck in parking lots. XD

I am amazed that Matracks are out there, but this hasn’t caught on yet.

Assuming you are converting a full-frame truck you could do it as a bolt-on kit with a less substantial frame, which would cut down on the weight, also you could lose the original suspension, like those two in the video.

@Alexander: Snow tires will work wonders, if you haven’t tried ‘em yet. In addition to more aggressive tread, the rubber’s softer so they don’t harden up in the cold. My otherwise hapless Civic’s pretty tank-like with some Nokians on the rims.

With the vehicle at the start you can see the axel stands, that support the rear of the car. When you load the car on the tracks, you would support the rear (RWD) or the front (FWD) on the axel stands, then then remove the tires, and mount a pulley or chain drive (on each side) to the hub that runs the tracks.

For steering and breaking you need to have a separate braking system on each track. Which is why there are two master cylinders shown in the video, one for each track. If you apply braking to one side of a diff the other will spin faster. Thus you have steering, if you brake both sides you have braking :P

Mattracks are made in the use can give your vehicle tracks in 30 min. they have tracks for ATVs also. And the best part, no major modifications are done and switch back anytime, just 30 min job and you have tires again, but why would you want tires once you have tracks. Tracks are way better, never have to worry about getting a flat.

If you look closely, you can see that this works by disconnecting the cars drive shaft, and reconnecting it to the tanks transfer box. Which means rear wheel drive cars only. The reason they do this, is that to steer a tank, you need to break one of the tracks, which you obviously can’t do if you are using a cars differential to power it.

@ DustySeven7
To answer your question. I live in Minnesota and have worked right next to the Mattracks factory. The reason you would switch back to tracks in the summer or out of mud is because your $*,*** tracks are much more expensive than rims/tires, and you are limited to around 40 mph in a regular motor vehicle.

@Ninja
And if you ran tracks during the summer in Minnesota, the treads would be destroyed in a mere matter of HOURS due to our poor roads. But really, don’t they make Jeep Wranglers for a reason? I believe a full tank platform is a little overkill.

That is fun lol, wonder what it would be like coupled to a high power sports car like an r34 skyline… Super tank me thinks rofl.

Why the Russians though of this first… Oh well could come in handy in the next Georgia war as cheap ass troop transport I guess. Cost of APC = few million, cost of one of these, a few thousand plus the poor civilian whos car is conscripted for mother Russia haha. Not to mention a normal tank car would probly get you 30mpg easy, APC mostly give you 1-5mpg…